tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61796005103769409592016-12-06T16:21:56.846-07:00Multilingual MacDevoted to tips and other info on how to use your Mac to read and write languages other than EnglishTom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.comBlogger427125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-36696171613011836292016-12-06T16:21:00.005-07:002016-12-06T16:21:56.858-07:00Typophile Forum Back Online
After a long hiatus for redesign, the excellent Typophile site is back online, including all its earlier discussion posts. It's a first class resource for info and discussions about fonts of all sorts and font creation apps. The new format includes special "communities" for Arabic typography, blackletter, color fonts, Hebrew typography, and variation fonts.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-58482269006633435452016-11-05T18:02:00.003-06:002016-11-06T08:26:37.623-07:00Improved Apple Support For Complex Scripts
Traditionally full support for "complex scripts" like Devanagari in MacOS and iOS has required the use of special AAT fonts supplied by Apple. The much more common OpenType fonts for such languages used by other platforms would not work right.
While I have not seen anything directly from Apple, typography experts tell me that the Core Text API of Sierra and iOS 10 now supports the specs of Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-84792814662052605932016-10-29T12:23:00.002-06:002016-10-31T10:00:44.743-06:00MacOS: Possible New Keyboard for China
I have not seen any comments from Apple about it, but the China Apple Store is showing a keyboard for the new Macbook Pro which has a number of different markings than the normal US keyboard. Also the Hong Kong store lists a new keyboard -- "Chinese - Pinyin" -- in addition to the usual English International when you configure a new Macbook Pro.
My tests indicate this new keyboard reflects Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-41285992865431849352016-09-23T13:01:00.002-06:002016-10-18T10:32:20.031-06:00MacOS Sierra New Language Features
During a quick review of MacOS Sierra, I’ve found only few new language features:
+No new user interface localizations
+No new language keyboards
+1 new spellcheck setting — Japanese English
+2 new reference dictionaries — Traditional Chinese and Danish
+2 new English translation dictionaries — Dutch and Italian.
+An option to use Caps Lock to switch quickly to/from Latin and non-Latin Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-36796431943698393292016-09-15T05:23:00.003-06:002016-09-15T06:16:00.824-06:00iOS 10 Multilingual Typing
The multilingual typing feature of iOS 10 is limited to 2 languages at once, and only selected keyboards can do it at present. For a list go to this pageTom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-8505533952920897652016-09-14T05:58:00.001-06:002016-09-14T06:00:00.243-06:00New Language Features in iOS 10
Buried in the update info for iOS 10 is a list of improvements over iOS 9:
+Multilingual typing (autocorrect 2 latin script languages at once without changing keyboards)
+Live search results in Spotlight for Chinese and Japanese
+Siri support for Spanish (Chile), Chinese (Cantonese-China), English (ireland), English (S. Africa)
+Ling Wai and Kaiti Black document fonts for Chinese
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-36915117589143374012016-09-13T13:02:00.000-06:002016-09-15T05:25:06.011-06:00iOS 10 Language Support
Language support
English (Australia, Canada, UK, U.S.), Chinese (Simplified, Traditional, Traditional Hong Kong), French (Canada, France), German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Spanish (Latin America, Mexico, Spain), Arabic, Catalan, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Brazil, Portugal), Romanian, Russian,Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-82332819102987916142016-07-30T13:18:00.000-06:002016-07-30T13:18:00.936-06:00OS X: Typing Lepcha/Róng
Lepcha is a minority language of the Himalayas which has its own script. A newly developed OS X kit for this language can be obtained at
http://www.siblac.org/lepcha_script.html
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-9443995427136216652016-07-27T08:42:00.002-06:002016-07-27T08:42:36.180-06:00OS X: ABC Extended Keyboard Layout Capabilities
Apple’s ABC Extended keyboard layout ((formerly called "US Extended") lets you type a vast number of accented and other special latin characters. The standard reference for its codes is here. Unfortunately this reference is missing the following deadkey shortcuts which have been added at some point in recent years.
+Option Shift period: Characters with hooks: Ɓ ɓ Ɗ ɗ Ɲ ɲ ñ Ƴ ƴ‸
+Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-52372643828471912802016-07-09T09:09:00.003-06:002016-07-09T09:09:26.065-06:00OS X: Typing Cantonese
Apple’s Chinese input methods for OS X do not yet include one for Cantonese. Users who need that can check out these options:
+RIME
+OpenVanilla
+Dominic Yu
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-3986980664874141672016-06-19T09:16:00.000-06:002016-06-19T09:16:09.878-06:00iOS 10: New Language Features
According to reports, iOS 10, to be released later this year, will include:
+New Reference Dictionaries: Danish, Traditional Chinese, Dutch-English, Italian-English
+Multilingual Spellcheck (currently iOS can only spellcheck the language of the currently active keyboard).
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-69151425721673668372016-03-22T10:50:00.001-06:002016-03-22T10:50:03.875-06:00iOS Update 9.3: New Language Features
The 9.3 update to iOS released March 21 includes two language improvements:
+addition of Spanish (Latin America) to the system language choices
+SIRI support for Finnish, Hebrew, and Malay
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-22285224180475683792016-03-09T06:09:00.000-07:002016-03-12T10:34:00.914-07:00Office For Mac Now Officially Supports Arabic/Hebrew
MS has announced that as of its March update (15.20 for Word), RTL support is included in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote.
For best results, use one of the Apple Hebrew/Arabic keyboards. Some users report that 3rd party keyboards do not work right.
Welcome news after 15 years of requests. Note the new paragraph direction buttons:
Reports from readers about how well it Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-39948822562880586762016-02-25T17:17:00.003-07:002016-02-27T10:32:47.283-07:00Apple Opens Spanish and Portuguese Support Communities
For the new Spanish language Support Community, go to
https://communities.apple.com/es/
For Portuguese, go to
https://communities.apple.com/pt/
Up until now there have only been ASC's for English, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-23086723280876796342016-02-21T17:30:00.000-07:002016-02-21T17:30:02.725-07:00Word/Mac 2016 RTL Support Seems Much Improved
While playing with the latest update for Word for Mac 2016, 15.19.1, I thought the level of support for Arabic/Hebrew seemed considerably better. Not only are Arabic characters connected, but the cursor starts at the right and moves properly along with the text, changing fonts doesn't seem to cause problems, punctuation goes in the right place, vowels work, text is inserted where the author Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-22680801337724837392016-01-14T12:49:00.001-07:002016-01-21T12:16:57.576-07:00New Keyboard Resource for OS X
Keyman, which has long helped Windows users add special keyboards to their machines, is now available in a beta version for Mac. The app required for users to make custom keyboards themselves is still only for Windows, but the OS X version of Keyman Desktop lets you download a large number of keyboards from the existing Keyman and SIL libraries.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-60517454031713383002016-01-11T08:18:00.001-07:002016-01-11T08:18:19.137-07:00Apple Watch Language Capabilities
The Apple Watch uses a version of OS X (watchOS) which has different language capabilities than Mac OS X or iOS. Localizations for the menus and dialogues (set using the iPhone Apple Watch app via the menu My Watch > General > Language) are English (U.S.), English (UK), English (Australia), English (India), Spanish (Mexico), Spanish (Spain), French (France), French (Canada), German, Italian, Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-5390163620034770532016-01-06T15:06:00.001-07:002016-01-11T08:53:25.043-07:00iOS 9 Hardware Keyboard Layouts
When using a hardware keyboard with the iOS 9 device, you need to go into Settings > General > Keyboard > Hardware Keyboards and match the layout with whatever your keyboard's key printing is. Unfortunately Apple supplies only a limited selection of such layouts, so it's possible an exact match may not be possible. For example, if your keyboard requires the British PC layout, you are out of Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-6532037065825775712015-12-13T21:44:00.001-07:002015-12-13T21:44:24.865-07:00Confusing Name Changes in OS X
I've run into several people in the Apple Support Communities confused by recent name changes implemented by Apple. These are
+Starting with OS X 10.10.3, the standard menu item for many years called "Edit > Special Characters" is now called "Edit > Emoji & Symbols"
+Starting with OS X 10.11.0, the input source for many years called "US Extended" is now called "ABC Extended".
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-77901488206771458782015-12-09T13:26:00.002-07:002015-12-09T13:26:48.611-07:00WatchOS 2.1: New Language Features
Update 2.1 to WatchOS released December 8 includes improved language support and bug fixes as described below:
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-36460305806104428012015-12-09T13:19:00.003-07:002015-12-10T06:20:52.889-07:00iOS 9.2: New Language Features
The 9.2 update to iOS released December 8 includes the following language fixes and added features:
- Improved punctuation input on the 10-key Chinese (Pinyin & Stroke) keyboards with new expanded view of punctuation symbols and better predictions - Fixing an issue on Cyrillic keyboards where caps lock would be enabled when typing in URL or email fields - Siri support for Arabic (Saudi Arabia, Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-50828054254762908662015-11-22T15:32:00.001-07:002015-11-22T15:32:51.127-07:00Classic Mongolian Script Input Method
Users needing to input Classic Mongolian script, which has some features that are quite complex, should check out Richard Ishida's Mongolian Picker. Some info on its use is available at his blog.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-16365633636413936622015-11-15T11:42:00.000-07:002015-11-15T11:42:07.824-07:00Multilingual Mac Web Page Updated for El Capitan
The main Multilingual Mac Web Page has been updated to reflect OS X 10.11 El Capitan.
If readers find any errors, let me know via the comments or email.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-51301456975656809702015-10-16T12:23:00.000-06:002015-10-16T12:23:03.410-06:00iWork Apps Language Improvements
Apple released updates to its iWork apps for iOS, Mac, and iCloud on October 15, and info on the added features can be found here.
It looks like most apps got improved support for bidirectional scripts, though it's not clear what that involves.
The apps for iCloud are no longer "beta" and have a major expansion in their language support, which now covers U.S. English, French, German, Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6179600510376940959.post-86208409992282748512015-10-14T07:44:00.001-06:002015-10-14T07:44:31.116-06:00Uzbek Cyrillic
Users needing an Uzbek Cyrillic keyboard for OS X should try this page.
Tom Geweckehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03947144407429196465noreply@blogger.com0